Hello Forumites,
This is my first post and I have a very complicated question where even a moneysaving expert would need time to think to come up with a best answer.
I recently achieved Diamond status and want to know the most optimum route to booking Hilton rooms.
Currently, I book Hilton rooms through Hotel.com going via a cashback website called Quidco.com and then pay for the roooms with my Hilton Honors Platinum GBP Visa Card. Normally I get 8%-10% cashback from Quidco and 1 free stays from Hotel.com after booking 10 stays, which equates to a monetary value of 10% and when I pay using my Hilton visa card I get 2 points for every 1 GBP spent and this works out around 1.8%. So in total I can get a discount of 21.8% (10+10+1.8) booking it this way, but I forefeit all Hilton base points and Diamond (50%) bonus points.
However, I want to know if it would be worth my while booking Hilton rooms via Hilton's website going via Quidco.com, which normally gives 6% cashback (but now it is 13% for a limited period) and using my Santander zero card (no foreign exchangee fee) instead of Hilton visa as using Hilton visa would incur 2.99% exchange fee for any hotel booking done for non-sterling (i.e outside of UK).
I have also enquired that booking with Olotels.com usually gives a better room rate and this could also be booked via Quidco.com giving a cashback rate of 7%, but one would forefeit the HHonors points and the 1 free stays from Hotel.com.
According to a reputable website, a single HHonour point is worth 0.009 pence, and to make things even more complicated, Hilton sometimes gives double or triple points for stays in weekdays and weekends. I prefer to use my Hilton visa card, because I can maintain a minimum of Gold status if I spend more than 10K GBP in a year and I just about manage to go over if I put all my work expenses on the Hilton visa.
So forumites, I would be grateful if anyone has already done an in-depth analysis and figured out the most optimum way of booking Hilton rooms.
This is my first post and I have a very complicated question where even a moneysaving expert would need time to think to come up with a best answer.
I recently achieved Diamond status and want to know the most optimum route to booking Hilton rooms.
Currently, I book Hilton rooms through Hotel.com going via a cashback website called Quidco.com and then pay for the roooms with my Hilton Honors Platinum GBP Visa Card. Normally I get 8%-10% cashback from Quidco and 1 free stays from Hotel.com after booking 10 stays, which equates to a monetary value of 10% and when I pay using my Hilton visa card I get 2 points for every 1 GBP spent and this works out around 1.8%. So in total I can get a discount of 21.8% (10+10+1.8) booking it this way, but I forefeit all Hilton base points and Diamond (50%) bonus points.
However, I want to know if it would be worth my while booking Hilton rooms via Hilton's website going via Quidco.com, which normally gives 6% cashback (but now it is 13% for a limited period) and using my Santander zero card (no foreign exchangee fee) instead of Hilton visa as using Hilton visa would incur 2.99% exchange fee for any hotel booking done for non-sterling (i.e outside of UK).
I have also enquired that booking with Olotels.com usually gives a better room rate and this could also be booked via Quidco.com giving a cashback rate of 7%, but one would forefeit the HHonors points and the 1 free stays from Hotel.com.
According to a reputable website, a single HHonour point is worth 0.009 pence, and to make things even more complicated, Hilton sometimes gives double or triple points for stays in weekdays and weekends. I prefer to use my Hilton visa card, because I can maintain a minimum of Gold status if I spend more than 10K GBP in a year and I just about manage to go over if I put all my work expenses on the Hilton visa.
So forumites, I would be grateful if anyone has already done an in-depth analysis and figured out the most optimum way of booking Hilton rooms.